Absent Without Goodbye
by plenoptic
Summary: After the cold blooded murder of Optimus Prime, those who miss him most are those who knew his laugh. Three parter, depending on reviews. Featuring Elita One, Ironhide, and the last bot you'd expect. Dark themes.


**The Void**

_Plenoptic_

**Sort of something I wrote for no particular reason. I just wondered what TF would be like if Optimus were gone…Warning, completely depressing. A rather happy note at the end. Kind of like a parting word. Some very bad things are relayed…and you really just wanna give Elita a big hug by the end of it all.**

**While writing the last page or so of this, I abruptly found myself in tears. The best friend I've ever had recently moved, and when she was gone, I too felt that sensation of being nothing; of being beneath the rest of the world's notice because she took half of me with her. I felt disfigured and incomplete...I don't think she knows how much she meant to me, and I portray that feeling through Elita as well. I never wanted to make her feel insignificant, and I never wanted to hurt her...Someday I want to make that clear to her. Someday I want the truth to be something I can share with a smile.**

**And I don't want her to forget.**

. B E G I N . T R A N S M I S S I O N.

Elita One shivered. The cool night air wafted in through the open window, running chilling fingers over her armor. Determined not to lose precious recharge, she reached out across the bunk, groping blindly for her sparkmate's large, warm body--and her fingers found only flat steel.

Her optics came online in a nano-klick, and she sat bolt straight up, a brief note of panic trilling through her--and then it came flooding back in a wave of dull pain. She paused, swayed uncertainly, and let herself fall back onto the recharge berth. _His_ recharge berth. _His _quarters. Primus, it had been so late when she had gotten off shift…had she wandered into his quarters out of habit? Or…

She blinked tiredly up at the blank ceiling. It was way too late. She needed recharge. She needed…

_Optimus. _

No. Don't start thinking that way.

_I miss him._

Well, of course you do. But you can't let it pull you down. Think about it. At least he's okay now. He's not hurting anymore…

_But you are._

"Fraggit. I am _not_ having this conversation with myself," she grumbled, swinging her legs off of the recharge berth and standing up. Her sore joints creaked, and she stretched widely to get the lubrication systems pumping. Almost as an afterthought--_I'm up anyway_--she crossed the room and pulled the window closed with some difficulty. She almost turned to return to the berth, but the glare of one of Cybertron's moons caught her attention. She back tracked the two or so steps she had taken and leaned against the windowsill, pressing her forehead to the plexiglass.

"Optimus, what am I supposed to do?" she whispered mournfully. "…Where…where are you?"

_Not here. He's not here. He's not anywhere…in this world. In _my_ world. In this universe._

_He's gone._

She felt hot energon tears spring up in her optics, but she clenched her teeth, driving them away. She needed to stay focused. Stay calm. Face this crisis with confidence.

"_You don't have to be so strong, Lita. Not with me."_

_You're not even here, Optimus. So, on the contrary, I do._

"Primus almighty, this is absolutely revolting," she growled at herself, pushing away from the window and moving over to the computer console. "I'm arguing with an echo. Doesn't give me nearly the same rush as arguing with the real thing, so if I know what's good for me I'll stop it right now…"

She paused uncertainly at the desk. Photocube. Probably containing images of she and Optimus. She almost considered downloading it--saving each and every precious image in her memory banks--but she instead pushed it away to the corner of the desk, where it sat motionless. Just like her spark.

Elita moaned and sank down into his chair, resting her forehead against her palms as she propped her elbows against the desk. She shuttered her optics, casting a brief search through their bond--and met a dead end. There was nothing for her spark to connect to. She gritted her teeth against the pain once more, but somehow the tears escaped her barricade. A few fell to the desktop, and she wiped irritably at her optics.

"Stop it," she whispered firmly, but her spark seemed determined to make her cry as it continued to probe the suddenly empty-feeling universe. "Cut it out. He's not here. Accept that. Accept it, dammit…he's not coming back."

She doubled her efforts, but the tears came anyway, unbidden. She couldn't accept it. She wouldn't. She was tired of being strong. Tired of keeping the façade alive. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream, she wanted to run into his arms and sleep forever in his warmth--but she couldn't.

Alone for the first time in eons, she wept bitterly. Optimus Prime was dead. He was gone, further away than he'd ever been, further away than any distance countable in miles. His face was a mere image in her processor, his touch a vague memory in her membranes. She couldn't remember what he sounded like…

Her spark jolted with panic, and she immediately dredged up a memory byte from her processor, playing it back, but it was as though he had been muted; his lips moved, but she heard nothing. Her sobs nearly hysteric, she plowed through every memory her processor still possessed--and found nothing. No sound. Dammit, why had she not paid attention to his voice when he spoke to her? Why had she not saved the melodious sound away in her deepest memory banks, where it would live on forever?

Why did he have to go to begin with?

She buried her head in her arms and cried. The bastion of grief broke, spilling into her spark and out of her mouth and optics as each tear splattered the desktop. She hated and grieved at once--hated the mech who had taken her Optimus from her, grieved for the sparkmate she had lost.

What had possibly moved Primus to allow such a thing? Why had he allowed his child, the hope of the Autobots, to be taken so cruelly? Why had the omnipotent one not even granted Elita a chance to say goodbye? Wasn't he more merciful than that?

The memory of his death burned through with her grief, and with a moan she tried to shove it away, but her processor brought it back up. With a whimper she opened up to it--just a little--and the pain surged afresh in her spark. She choked on her own tears, trying to pull away from the memory once more, but it had her now…

She'd only seen the last few moments of his life. It was supposed to be an infiltration on Kaon, a last ditch effort to end the war before they were forced to launch the Allspark into space. They hadn't expected **him** to be there--reports from spies concluded that **he** was seeing to a base on Cybertron's first moon.

They had been wrong.

Megatron had been there, and like the hero they all knew he was Optimus had pursued him into the bowels of Kaon, insisting that the others get themselves to safety. It was foolhardy, and the commander had to have known it, but he'd gone after his brother anyway. Elita One, in a state of near panic, had followed--the sudden ache in her spark could not be denied.

She'd gotten lost in the many networks of Kaon, and had wandered around for a good breem before she'd heard the sound of gunfire in a passageway in front of her. She'd sped up her pace, rounded the corner--

Her sparkmate, her bonded, had been backed against a wall, energon leaking from a long wound in his abdomen. His mask had been cracked, flecks of energon spraying from the torn circuits. Through his pain his optics had been alight with fire, glaring at his twin brother with impassioned hate rivaled only by the intense emotions he felt for Elita.

In the briefest of moments before his death, his gaze had wandered every so slightly, and he had seen her. He looked back to his brother, determined not to draw the Decepticon's attention to his beloved, but she had felt Optimus's spark reaching out to hers, very nearly touched her through their bond--

Megatron had pressed the nose of his fusion cannon to Optimus's chest and pulled the trigger.

A point-blank shot to the spark.

There was no surviving.

The shock that enveloped her as her sparkmate's empty shell crashed to the ground was something Elita could not possibly forget. She'd felt the scream rise up in her throat, she'd felt it explode from her body. Megatron had turned, his triumph ebbing as the femme had rushed forward to collapse at Optimus's side, hysterically pleading with him to get up, to fight back…to…to do anything…

"_Please…Optimus…please…!"_

Elita One shuddered at her desk. This memory had to end. She didn't want to see anymore. She didn't want to remember…no…

She'd had no time to grieve for her lost lover. Moments after she'd reached Optimus's side, she'd been seized by cold, unforgiving hands, dragged up to his face level…

The words Megatron spoke to her were thankfully lost to history, but she remembered--too well--the harsh hands that had ravaged her body, dug into the sensitive circuitry. She remembered the icy lips that had slammed hers, over and over, stealing the kisses meant only for Optimus…she remembered his fingers fumbling with her crotch plating, she remembered his connection cord being forced into her interface port…

Elita clutched her head in her hands, opening her optics wide to drink in the serene setting of their shared quarters, but the images played back in her processor. Forced interface. She shuddered, curling into a tight ball on her lover's chair. It had hurt…when Megatron did it, it had been pure agony…and his hands had never left her, they'd grabbed at every part of her body they could find…

"Stop it!" she snarled under her breath. "Enough. Don't dwell on it. What happened in the past doesn't matter anymore. It's over, forget about it."

She had run out of tears. She lifted her head cautiously; the memory chip playback had ended. Of course…she had lost consciousness after he had forced her into overload. He hadn't hacked her programming, he hadn't extracted any information--but he'd forced interface on her. The trail of thought suddenly brought his words into her mind…

"_Your sparkmate is dead. See? He was not invincible. Neither are you. I would kill you as well…but when I finally make you mine, I want your body to move. I want to hear you scream in pain."_

Elita wrapped her arms around herself, whimpering. Megatron had killed her love. He had forced interface on her.

And here she was, in such pain, in such _agony…_and not one comforting mech to hold, not one spark to reach out to, not one gentle hand to wipe her tears away. She pressed her face into her knees, sobbing freely now. She didn't want to hold it in anymore. Wherever he was--the Matrix, the Well of All Sparks, at the side of Primus, where she knew he truly belonged--surely he could see her? Surely he knew that his absence was not a trivial matter in the art of war? Surely he knew--surely he could _see_--that without him, Elita One felt as if she were nothing.

Nothing but a helpless femme with a broken spark.

She felt grief. She also felt guilt. If only she hadn't been so stupid as to actually get herself lost…if only she had gotten there sooner…maybe she could have been the one to die, maybe the Autobot forces wouldn't be losing hope…maybe they'd still stand a chance…

_Did I take him for granted? Did I take my time with him too lightly? It was war, we both knew what could happen…every day, we dwelled on the fact that one of us could be gone the next. But…_

_It was never supposed to actually _happen!

What did she have left of him? What did she have left to remember him by? What had been her last words to him? His to her? When had they last argued? What about? When was the last time they had renewed their sparkbond? Had they always been so stupid as to think they'd always have tomorrow?!

_Dammit…we didn't!_

Her systems revved quietly as her sobs lessened. Not because she'd rid her spark of all of her grief--a day she knew would never, ever come--but because she had simply worn herself out. Forcing her legs to unbend and move, she crawled back onto the recharge berth, pulling the warm thermal blankets back over her frame. She sighed, reflecting; before, she'd never needed the blankets. She'd had Optimus's arms, his body, to keep her warm. She'd never needed the headrest before, either; she'd always snuggled her head into the crook between his neck and shoulder.

She absently reached out in the dark, and once more her wandering fingertips found only empty air. She allowed her hand to drop back to the berth. With a sigh, she shuttered her optics, once more reaching through their broken bond. She found nothing.

Something in her cracked then. Something in Elita One made her keep pushing, keep reaching, until her spark ached, seeming to try to convince her that there was nothing left to connect to. She reached on.

It was then that she felt it. When her spark was throbbing in pain, searching desperately for its mate, she felt him. She felt something poke through the other end of their bond--something that felt so wonderfully like his spark it made her optics well with tears once more. Whimpering, she reached out to this familiar entity, embracing it, molding her spark against its own. It was so small--like a tiny, pinprick star on a moonless night. She held on to it with everything she had, crying to it. It felt like _Optimus_. It felt like the essence of his spark, as if he was reaching out from wherever he was now, reaching out once more just to touch her, to tell her he missed her, that he loved her, that he still cared for her and still watched over her and…

"…Optimus?" she spoke to the wall, and indirectly to whatever it was her spark now held on to. "It's me. It's Elita. I want to apologize. For…for everything. But if you were here you'd tell me to apologize for nothing, right? You'd say there's nothing to forgive. You'd lift an optic ridge and laugh and touch my face and ask me what the slag I'm talking about, right? See? I know you, Optimus…I know you a lot better than you think.

"But I still want to apologize, you know? I want to say I'm sorry for not saying that I _do _know you, and that I'm happy to know you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you how much…" she stalled. She felt insane. Maybe that was okay. Maybe, when you lost your sparkmate, the one you loved, you were supposed to feel insane.

"Optimus? Did I ever tell you how much I…I love you? Because it's…true. It's true, I swear to Primus. I really do…love you…And I'm happy for you, you know. Wherever you are, I'm sure…I'm sure it's beautiful, right? I'm sure you're enjoying yourself, right? Because…it doesn't hurt anymore, does it. You don't need to worry anymore. You can breathe again. I'm just…I'm sorry I couldn't…give that to you here…like you gave it to me."

She snorted and sat up, wiping at her optics. "And I'm sorry that I have to say all this to a wall," she sighed, smiling slightly. "I'm sorry I thought I'd never have the time to say it to your face. I'm sorry I don't have the courage to admit to others how much you meant to me. How much I needed you. So…please…forgive me.

"And…most of all…please…"

_Don't forget. _

_I love you._

* * *

To those of you who may have been wondering, that tiny "pinprick" was Optimus's spark reaching to Elita through the Matrix. Just thought I'd clarify, because obviously she can't know this for sure and he won't be reaching through to the other two bots I'll write about in this series. 


End file.
